It's getting fairly annoying to fix comic threads about once a week because they don't adhere to the pretty basic requirements for new comic threads, especially from users with single-digit posts who seem to exist almost solely to post new comic threads. Make sure your post has the image, a link to the comic (this is the most frequently forgotten bit), the title text, and some commentary of your own.

2017-06-19 Edit: If you fuck it up too badly, I'm going to fix your post and then change it so it looks like I wrote it in the first place.

RULES FOR POSTING A NEW COMIC'S THREAD

Much as we all think it's silly, it's apparently important to you guys to be the 'first to post the new comic', so if you do get a warm tingly sense of pride from being the guy who gets the thread up first, then you have my gentle sympathy. But nonetheless follow the rules:

where #### is the four-digit number of the comic, at least until Randall reaches comic #10,000. You'll also notice that it means you can click on the comic to take you to the correct webpage.

If you are unsure or unconfident about using BBCode... don't start a new thread. Someone else will within a minute of you, it seems.

Write the title-text below. This is the text that pops up when you 'mouse-over' the comic.

Provide some commentary below. This is a discussion after all... No point in just posting what's on the front page of xkcd.com and providing nothing else of value

Don't start a blank thread just to be first. Not only is it a tiny bit pathetic, it's also annoying. Complete your thread before submitting it.

If duplicates are made, only reply to the earliest one posted. The duplicates will be ruthlessly merged at some point, with no consideration given to disrupting the flow of conversation (hence why several threads have whiners going "waaaaah why are people posting in this thread and not the other?!").

Unless stated otherwise, I do not care whether a statement, by itself, constitutes a persuasive political argument. I care whether it's true.---If this post has math that doesn't work for you, use TeX the World for Firefox or Chrome

[url=https://xkcd.com/${comic number}/][img]${comic image URL (starts with https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/)}[/img][/url]Title text: “[i]${the text tooltip when hovering over the image (the value of the title attribute of the comic image)}[/i]”

${self-written comment related to the comic to show your interest, prove you're not a robot (or really THAT good) and make the forum a better place}

(replace everything within ${}s (including the ${ and }) with their intended values)

Question: are we encouraged to start an additional topic if we see that the first one doesn't follow the rules (so the offending topic can be merged into it)? Also, what do you say of closing the offending topic rather than fixing it yourselves (and then merging it with a compliant topic when that is created)?

Flumble wrote:Also, what do you say of closing the offending topic rather than fixing it yourselves (and then merging it with a compliant topic when that is created)?

That sounds like it could be effective in discouraging the bad behavior. Deny them the reward of being "fr1st!" if they do it wrong.

If there isn't some form of manual temporal engineering possible, in the merging, $PrematureWronglyDoneThread[0] when merged into the whole @AtLeastTenSecondsTakenToDoItProperlyThread will end up thread-topping in its own uniquely wrong way. Wrong first posts should probably be just excised (if there is not enough merit to be worth a mod overhauling them to make the wrong bits right).

But then $PrematureWronglyDoneThread[1] (if not just a "you did it wrong!", so also expungable) might also predate the accepted thread run. Best to let anything that disrupts the top-end just die, let the rest sort themselves out and if there's something that someone said that got in during the microseconds between an opportunity to make a decent reply to a badly initiated thread and the decently (re)initiated thread that could do with that repky, badly, then if the OP of that can't reauthor/retype it or find a copy in their browser backtrack history (I did that once... I forget for why, but I commented as such at the time, I'm sure) then they can run the risk of annoying the mods to browse into whatever Limbo area the publicly-deleted messages go to await any final data-death (or official reprieve) and get it PMed to them just this once, with a nominal slap on the wrist for actually being constructive in an initially unconstructive thread, for which they should have known better. Charging in, like a bull in a shop that seems to be selling china bulls. Wielding a tube of crazyglue.

Anyway. I see absolutely no problem with that plan... A combination of "Less Is More" and "Beware Waking The Mods, For They Speak Colourfully But Are Swinging Huge Ban-Hammers And Post-Axes Whilst Running With Scissors At The Edge Of The Swimming Pool". Or something.

[...] where ### is the three-digit number of the comic, at least until Randall reaches comic #1000. [...]

Not that it's particularly important, but this bit could do with a little update.

Updated by an order of magnitude.

Unless stated otherwise, I do not care whether a statement, by itself, constitutes a persuasive political argument. I care whether it's true.---If this post has math that doesn't work for you, use TeX the World for Firefox or Chrome

Thesh wrote:I recommend the mods simply collect a finger from the offender as compensation.

Cadbury's, sponge or fish?

If the mods like 'em with custard, you know which one it is. (Also, "sponge"? They only get spongy if you keep them in a moist area for too long. Oh of course, you probably dunk them in tea. Silly Brits.)

I'm surprised noone has said this yet, but instead of trying to do this manually (and inevitably messing up a quotation mark or something), just use this:https://chridd.nfshost.com/xkcd-thread/I suppose you could thank chridd for setting it up, but I'll take credit for it. I did just link to it, after all.